In a nutshell, Malone had allowed his once methodical expertise to slip. In fact, a 1992 assault conviction was overturned in 2003 based on Malone’s neglect to do proper testing of fiber evidence, and defense attorneys, quick to jump on the bandwagon, demanded that their cases also be re-examined. The publicity was too much for the FBI, and Malone’s once sterling reputation came into question. He was allowed to retire in 1999.
Long’s attorneys seized on the criticism leveled at the FBI’s crime lab, but their client had confessed to the murders, and there was Lisa McVey’s evidence and hair samples to boot; the appeal merely delayed the legal process, costing the taxpayer millions more dollars while the lawyers were well-paid in the bargain.
At the time of this writing, Bobby Joe Long is on death row, awaiting his appointment with his executioner. If this stone-cold killer had learned anything after fessing up to his heinous crimes, he should know when to keep his lips firmly zipped up.
He hasn’t, for what follows is correspondence written by Bobby Joe to murder groupie Annabel Leigh. It is published verbatim here for the first time. It truly shows the sick workings of this serial killer’s mind, perhaps illustrating exactly why Bobby Joe Long was sentenced to death.14
In 2007, Annabel Leigh (not her real name) began writing to Bobby Joe Long. Long answered and asked for a photograph ofof Annabel, and when it arrived in his prison cell he immediately started putting pen to paper—lots and lots of paper, filled with writing on both sides.
He began by detailing his preferred reading material, which included Bizarre Magazine, Redemption, Centurion and Rose Comics— the last containing a good deal of blood and violence meant for readers aged 18 and up. He also advised that she familiarize herself with this material, providing the publishers’ addresses for her convenience. “Be sure to sign an age statement,” he wrote, “and I think they’ll all send you some catalogs you’ll find . . . interesting☺. Who knows, maybe even some stuff you’ve never seen before!”
Then, without blinking, he asked:Have you ever watched a hard-core XXX rated, graphic “Fuck-Video”??? If so, what did you see that most interested you? If not, would you like to??? I also have some catalog addresses for very good videos of this type. What sexual subjects do you like? And would you like to see? Ever seen two guys suck each other’s dicks? Then Butt-Fuck each other? Tell me baby, what would interest you, to see? So much about you I don’t know—and want to!!:)
Quite what Annabel Leigh made of those first few lines from our man-about-death row is unknown. Hopefully, her deeply religious parents, born and raised in the Hopkins County town of Dawson Springs, Kentucky, didn’t get sight of the letter, either. Had they done so, I can testify, as I have visited this redneck place, that the news would have traveled fast. Everyone from the boss of Thrifty’s Drug Store to the local branch of the Imperial Klan of America would have been juiced up on the local “shine,” curtain-twitching would have been rife, and it would certainly have made the headlines of the local newspaper in a heartbeat. That Henry Dodson, aged 98, had died while carp fishing at Old Mill Dam, leaving his teenage wife and six kids, would have missed print altogether.
Nonetheless, not one to be fazed by a man who certainly had no claim to the label “shrinking violet,” Annabel wrote back and asked Bobby Joe about his music preferences. To which he responded like a greyhound out of a gate, and ignoring her request, wrote:Here is where you tell me about shaving your puss, completely . . . year around. Now this is the kind of stuff I like you to tell me about ☺. Have you ever thought about letting just a little strip of your fur grow in above your clit? Just a little strip of that “FIRE!!” is all keeping the rest shaved? How long ago—how old were you—did you first start shaving your little “monkey’?
How would you feel about doing a nipple print for me, on a page of a letter? Do you know what I mean?
By now you will be getting the drift of Bobby Joe Long’s letters to Annabel—page after page of drivel and filth. However, he soon returned to his memories of commercial diving, explaining to Annabel that he had quickly learned the importance of keeping warm “out there on the rigs” and that “fortunately in commercial diving, we used hot-water wet suits, and at around 1000 ft, believe me it gets cold down there . . . Hey! You’d like it out on a Miami beach on a blue day . . . wearing a little nothing of a bikini . . . don’t ya think? ☺.”
Eventually, Bobby Joe Long did go into some detail about his musical preferences, but I won’t bother you with more pages of his mind-debilitating rubbish.
The final question we must ask ourselves is this: Who is the real Bobby Joe Long?
“’Oh God!” I screamed, and “Oh God!” again and again; for there before my eyes . . . pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death . . . stood Henry Jekyll!”
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of Bobby Joe Long’s persona is his physical mask, the one he has worn since the day he was born. He simply does not look like a serial killer, or how we might imagine a serial killer to look.
If we were to peel away his physical mask, as one might peel an apple, we would find in parts that he is rotten to the core, with the brown mush eating away at what fresh fruit remains.
In Bobby Joe Long, we do not find a simplified Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character. We find a multifaceted personality, a complex role that any actor would be proud to portray successfully.
Every man and woman has dimensions and facets to their true character, all of which are parts of the “real” them. Bobby Joe Long is no exception.
Within this moral duality rests the true nature of Bobby Joe Long.
CHAPTER 5
DAVID ALAN GORE AND FREDERICK L. WATERFIELD JR.—FLORIDA REDNECKS
Man’s destructive hand spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, and he kills for the sake of killing.
—JOSEPH DE MAISTRE
ONCE IN A BLUE MOON a serial killer’s criminal history comes to us not quite as clear-cut as the authorities would have us believe. The trial and conviction of Fred Waterfield is a prime example.
The following account features:A detective suppressing vital evidence and planting false evidence to obtain two rape convictions against Waterfield;
Two false allegations of rape made against Waterfield; A court official “losing” vital appeal documents;
A state prosecutor bribing witnesses and withholding crucial evidence that would have proven Waterfield to be innocent;
David Gore’s sworn affidavits, which categorically state that Fred Waterfield was never involved in any of the rapes and subsequent murders committed by Gore; and
Made public for the first time, the shocking full and frank confessions of how David Gore, a self-admitted cannibal, entrapped his victims, raped, tortured, and murdered them, and ate their flesh.
Indeed, this chapter clearly exposes a gross miscarriage of justice in respect to Mr. Waterfield. But I will allow my readers to work it out for themselves and form their own opinions.15
Born in Indian River County, Florida, on Monday, September 29, 1952, inmate #0956510 Frederick Levin Waterfield has brown hair and brown eyes; he is six feet tall and weighs 222 pounds. He is currently serving a life sentence for offenses he did not commit at the Florida Department of Corrections Okeechobee Correctional Institution, Okeechobee County, Florida.
Born in Indian River County, Florida, on Friday, August, 21, 1953, inmate #081008 David Alan Gore can be described as brown-haired and blue-eyed; at six feet tall, he weighs 206 pounds. He is one of only a few former cops under sentence of death for crimes he did commit and is a resident in the Florida Department of Corrections Union Institution, Raiford, Florida.
David Gore has always had the look of a stereotypical “’Gator Evergl
ades” redneck. A firearms fan, he studied gunsmithing in his free time. He also studied women, but in a different fashion . . . He was a sexual pervert who would screw any piece of skirt he came across. Indeed, he lost one of his jobs as a gas station attendant after the owner found a peephole Gore had drilled between the men’s and women’s restrooms.
Apart from this snippet of information, little else is known about the aptly named Gore. He would have us believe that he was physically abused as a child by his father, but there is no evidence to support this. In fact, Gore’s brother-in-law, William Bowling, says that “Gore’s father, Alva, was a good, genuine man.” Alva Gore would later testify that although his family was impoverished, his son never went hungry or without medical attention when he needed it, adding: “My wife stayed home and took care of the children growing up.”
Details concerning Fred Waterfield’s formative years are even less clear than his cousin’s. Waterfield refuses to discuss this at all. But we do know his mother is named Mildred, that he has a sister named Constance, and that he was a high school football star. Some argue, quite erroneously, that he had a violent temper and a liking for sex, “which made him and David Gore seem like brothers.” However, after Fred reached the age of nine, he says, he had little to no contact with Gore for many years:I was considered a workaholic by family and friends. Two of my ex-wives and none of my children could tell you what Gore looked like. I worked 10 to 14 hours a day and raced all kinds of vehicles on weekends. In 1975 I moved from
Vero Beach to Clairmont and eventually Orlando, where I opened my own automotive business from 1977 to 1983. To expand my business I found a 9.9-acre tractor trailer shop in Vero Beach and moved back there in May, 1983.
—Frederick Waterfield in a letter to the author, October 21, 2008
Lynn Elliott and Regan Martin
Just before 4 p.m. on Tuesday, July 26, 1983, the Vero Beach Police Department received a 911 telephone call from a Michael Rock. The young cyclist had furiously peddled home to report a naked man firing shots at an equally naked girl on a residential street. The police turned up a few minutes later and found nothing of note.
At 4:23 p.m. a second emergency call came into the police station. Another male caller said that he had just heard screams coming from a nearby orange grove and that a man was chasing an injured woman. Then the phone went dead. Police soon determined from which address the second call had come, so officers knocked on the front door. It was opened by Gore, who told them that the property was owned by his parents, who were away on vacation.
In the driveway, officers found a car with fresh blood dripping from its trunk. Inside was the naked body of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott. She had been fatally shot in the head. Gore was immediately arrested, after which he directed officers to the attic, where they discovered 14-year-old Regan Martin, who was also naked and tied spread-eagle fashion to the rafters.
Back at the police station, the sobbing Regan Martin explained that she and Lynn had been hitchhiking when Gore and another man (later identified as Fred Waterfield) picked them up. Gore had flashed a pistol at them and also threatened his companion before driving them to the house. Here, Regan said, the two men had a heated conversation, and Waterfield left immediately. Thereafter, the young women were stripped, tied up, and raped repeatedly by Gore in separate rooms.
Lynn, it seems, had managed to free herself and escape on foot with Gore in pursuit. She had not been fast enough. He knocked her down, dragged her back to the house, put her in the trunk of his car and fired single bullet into her head.
In her police statement, Regan Martin was adamant that the as yet unidentified man (Waterfield) had not threatened either girl in any way. Indeed, in her initial statements to police she said that Gore had also threatened Waterfield with the gun when Waterfield said that he wanted nothing to do with the unplanned abduction.
Regan also said that Waterfield had not sexually assaulted the girls in any way, and she asserted Waterfield’s innocence for ten months before suddenly, and without warning, she changed her mind at his trial. After the trial, she retracted her court testimony, saying that the police had pressured her to testify that Waterfield was involved.
Detective Daniel Nippes stated in his evidence that he had found that Gore’s jeans had saliva and sperm traces in the crotch and fly area. “The forensic evidence is consistent with Lynn Elliott being forced to perform oral sex,” he concluded.
The Medical Examiner stated that: “Elliott’s injuries were very painful . . . the abrasions to her hip, shoulder, and knees were consistent with being dragged, and all of the injuries occurred before death.”
Gore had soon cracked under questioning. He explained to Detective Phil Redstone that he had made his telephone call to police in an effort to lead them away from the house after seeing police cars responding to the first 911 call—that made by Michael Rock. And despite Regan Martin’s insistence that the other man was completely innocent, Gore implicated his cousin Fred Waterfield as being as responsible as he was in the double abduction, rapes, and the murder of Lynn Elliott.
With this confession under his belt, Detective Redstone contacted Assistant District Attorney Robert Stone, and an arrest warrant was issued for Waterfield.
Frederick Waterfield was picked up later the same day and, in Case No. 83-361.B, a grand jury issued a true bill of indictment on August 10, 1983, charging him with one count of first-degree felony murder (Lynn Elliott), and two counts of kidnapping (Lynn Elliott and Regan Martin).
To be fair to the grand jury, however, they had been kept in the dark, for State Attorney Robert Stone had suppressed the statements made by Regan Martin that would have proven that Waterfield was innocent.
DA Stone also suppressed the evidence given by Michael Rock, who, in a lineup, had identified the naked Gore as being the man chasing the equally naked Lynn Elliott down the street. For their part, police were still falsely insisting that the naked man had been Fred Waterfield.
Waterfield’s attorney, Michael Bloom, then got wind of Regan Martin and Michael Rock’s testimony favoring his client, so he applied for disclosure of the statements the two witnesses had given to the police. On October 10, 1983, Judge G. Kendall Sharp ordered that the state’s attorney’s office make the statements of Rock and Martin available to the defense.
State Attorney Robert Stone flipped, for he now realized that the already flimsy case he had against Waterfield would collapse completely if Martin and Rock’s statements fell into the defense attorney’s hands, for it would become obvious to the judge that Stone had unlawfully misled the grand jury to secure a true bill of indictment, the first step toward a full trial.
Now desperate, in order to extricate himself from this extremely dangerous situation, Robert Stone made a formal and scurrilous complaint to the state supreme court requesting an order that would remove Judge Sharp from conducting any further proceedings in the case.
Later, under examination in court, Stone admitted that his complaint against Judge Sharp was “without merit,” and, that it was a tactical move on his behalf to prevent Waterfield from presenting Regan Martin and Michael Rock’s testimony and evidence in the defense’s favor.
Nevertheless, Judge Sharp now found himself between a rock and hard place. An honest and decent man, nonetheless he made the decision–on a technicality that is still obscure today–to deny the defense’s request for disclosure, the result being that the testimony of Regan Martin and Michael Rock would go unheard.
DA Stone then returned to David Gore and started to make phony promises of a plea bargain agreement, which, he said, could save him from the very real possibility of execution. Gore started to sing like the proverbial canary, and between the DA and Gore they concocted a series of crimes that the cousins had committed “together,” way back in 1976.
Diane Smalley
The first incident allegedly concerned the two men following a woman driver near Yeehaw Junction, a major stopping point for tourists on the Flori
da Turnpike. Gore claimed that Fred had fired several rifle shots into the vehicle’s tires, the car had skidded off the road, and the intended victim had escaped on foot.
Detective Redstone located the case file, and soon afterward Diane Smalley identified one of the two men as David Gore. She also positively identified the man who had fired the shots at her car as one Eugene Franklin, not Waterfield. When Redstone showed her a photo of Fred Waterfield, Smalley said that she absolutely had never seen Waterfield before. Notwithstanding this, acting on DA Stone’s instructions, Redstone used correction fluid to remove Franklin’s name from the file and inserted Waterfield’s.
Diane Smalley maintained that Waterfield was not involved in her attempted abduction right up to Fred Waterfield’s trial, when suddenly, without warning, and just like Regan Martin, she flip-flopped and identified Waterfield as Gore’s accomplice.
Clearly, Diane Smalley had been “gotten to” by the prosecution. Nonetheless, the case was dismissed against Waterfield because fingerprints showed that in no way could he have been involved. Franklin’s prints would confirm it, and this is one of a number of reasons why DA Stone was later fired from his job.
Anjelica Hommell
The second incident had far greater consequences for Waterfield. Gore, District Attorney Stone, and Detective Redstone concocted the Hommell case in an attempt to prove that Waterfield was capable of rape and attempted murder.
The Voices of Serial Killers Page 13